HON SALAMU MUSUMBA

Moderator: I hope you can hear me. Henry, can you hear me? Can someone use an emoji perhaps to indicate if I can be heard? Okay, I don’t see the sign, but I assume I’m being heard. So, welcome to yet another edition of Agora’s Discourses, where we are still going to talk about the big topic in town, the issue of transition. Last week we had a political analyst, entrepreneur, journalist, PLU spokesperson, so many things, Andrew Mwenda, giving us his take on this topic. So today we’ll have two prominent senior citizens of the country who have served in different capacities, have the seniority status, and have been in and out of the corridors of power and know more about this topic. I’m talking about the Honorable Salam Musumba and General Mugisha Muntu, who will also give us their take on this very issue. General Mugisha Mutu and Salam Musumba will join us shortly, and when they join, we’ll pick up the discussion from there. But before they do, I just hope that you stick here with us. As we wait for them, we’re making a few phone calls here and there to get them on the space, and then we can officially start. So I request that you give us maybe three to five minutes, we get that sorted, and then we can have this discussion underway. So just hang in here. 

I have sent you an invitation to speak. Kindly accept it. Yes, Honorable, I have sent you an invitation to speak. Just accept that and then you can become a speaker instantly. Yes, Honorable, great that we have you now. Finally, can you hear me? 

Hon Salam Musumba: Yes, I can hear you loud and clear. 

Moderator: Great.Your co-panelist is going to be Honorable Mugusha Muntu, who is at a function, I understand, but he said he must leave as soon as the function is done, which should be a few minutes from now, and then join us into the conversation. So I will try to engage you, if that’s okay. 

Hon Salam Musumba: That’s fine with me. 

Moderator: Okay, so first, Honorable, what have you been up to lately? You’re no longer in Parliament. With all the politics that’s going on, maybe some of our viewers just want to know what’s going on with your life, as far as the political side is concerned. 

Hon Salamu Musumba: Yes, thank you very, very much, and I want to thank Agora for hosting this great discussion on Uganda’s transition, a thing that we have all loved to see in our lifetime, and for which we work very hard day and night to secure. And I, Proskovia Salam Musumba, I am at it too, and I’ve been at it since I’ve joined politics. And so I’m in heavy-duty politics, and I am occupying myself with being a model of what we should be as political leaders. I’m sure that’s enough for all of us listening in and tuned in. Perfect, we can start. 

Moderator: And what would the ideal transition scenario look like, and finally, why is it a big deal that Uganda must churn that ideal situation of transition? 

Hon Salam Musumba: Well, next week we will be 62 years independent, and we have not, as a country, achieved a transition from one leader, elected leader, to another. And this is what the 1995 Constitution, the Constituent Assembly, sought to resolve once and for all. And that’s why they provided two terms of office for a president, and also put in other constitutional safeguards. As we are all aware, that didn’t come to pass, and the biggest fear of our nation, lack of a transition, bedevils this nation, on this planet. And we are the biggest isle on the East African side of the continent, and it continues to be our desire that we will see one leader, one president, hand over power, from themselves to the next leader. And that we will then make that a political culture, and a political practice, that secures our collective future as a country. So for you listening in, I’m sure it is your desire, like it has been my desire, and continues to be my desire, that we achieve this in our lifetime. I’m sure I’m not asking for too much, and the listeners are also not asking for too much, for us to live peacefully through all the transitions, from one political administration to the next one. Unfortunately, our history only speaks about bombing ourselves into power, and bombing ourselves out of power. Manipulating all the laws to make sure that we do not leave power, and that we perpetuate ourselves. Long ago, when we were fighting against changing the constitution, amending the constitution, before we made it work, before we implemented those articles, we were thinking that we had reached a situation, a political situation, in which it would be common knowledge and common sense, that we need a civilian government, a democratically elected government, that gives democratic goods to us all. That hasn’t come to pass, and so it continues to be our desire, it continues to be our struggle, day in and day out, to achieve this. If it will not happen in my time, because my time is going pretty fast, that it will happen in my children’s time. But for sure, that my grandchildren will not have to hassle the way their grandmother has. Transition is handing power from one leader to the next leader, even if it is from the same party, even if it is to another party or another actor. That is what transition means. 

Moderator: Okay, so let me just follow that up. In 2021, there were two presidents that took oath of office in the East African community. The most obvious one was President Museveni of Uganda, who was taking his oath to serve what would end up being his 40th term in power as president. But down south, President Samia Suluhu, who also took oath of office, the circumstances were different. She was the vice president of the president who had died, and so she became the president. Now, if we reverse these scenarios, Tanzania is having elections next year, but if we reverse these scenarios, and well, I’ll say God forbid, the Ugandan president slept, and people went and waited for him, and he didn’t open in the morning, the whole day he doesn’t open, and then late in the evening they realize that there may be something wrong. And once they get him, they realize that the president has gone to be with God. God has gone to spend the rest of his life with God. What would that look like in Uganda from your own assessment currently? How would things play out? 

Hon Salam Musumba: For today, it would take a month for that to be announced officially. And the person to announce it would not be the vice president or the speaker as the chain of command says. It would be the CDF, the command of the defense forces. And that’s why you see that all the effort to have him as the CDF became necessary, because the political arm is so vulnerable, is so weakened, is so disempowered, that power still resides in the military and in the guns. So first of all, this anticipation is not far-fetched, and all the cards that are being rolled out on the table speak to that. And so our readiness is for disaster readiness, disaster preparedness, because the vice president, Her Excellency Jessica Alupo, would not take oath normally. It would be a negotiation. The speaker, too, would not be the first choice of the powers that be as of now. So constitutionalism and the constitution could be disrupted, and so the chaos that we thought or we planned to forestall would be for last. I don’t know where you would be, but I’m sure you wouldn’t come out of your house, and you wouldn’t be comfortable even listening in. You would switch off your phone. And so that is the calamity we face. That is the collective fear and the collective tragedy that we are preparing for as of today. 

Moderator: You sound a bit scared, but… 

Hon Salam Musumba: No, I’m not scared. I’m not scared. I will tell you that I’m as old as Uganda. And therefore, I have seen everything that I’m describing to the platform. And so, there’s nothing else that can go wrong that hasn’t gone wrong already. So, we, as a country, don’t have even to hide our heads in the sand. We are past that level. We are in red alert. And that’s what we should all brace ourselves for, unless we are ready to bang the table and get back on track. 

Moderator: Okay, I ask that because last week we had a senior journalist, Andrew Mwenda, who calls himself the old man of the clan. I don’t know how old he is compared to you. But he had a similar scenario. He said, look, if the president passes on, the army will take over and they will announce whoever becomes the president. But he didn’t seem to suggest that. First of all, he suggested it is unlikely to be another scenario. But then he also didn’t seem to say that that would be the worst of things. Probably, he didn’t paint a picture of there probably being chaos or there being some sort of upheaval. It would be just a normal army takes over and then life continues to move on normally, maybe for a period of time until things change. 

Hon Salam Musumba: So, that second bit of… And that is to imagine. That is to imagine that there’s a harmonious army. We don’t have that today. 

Moderator: Yeah, because my colleague asked him that as well. And he said, no, the army is more united than people ever imagined. Salam Musumba: No. Okay. The army is in quiet dissent. They have created, they have tried to create an army for him, retiring all the other people. They’ve tried to build an army around him. They are building a political class around him. Now they are building a technical class around him. And so that’s the plot. But not every plot works very well. If you look back in our history, you will see that Muammar Gaddafi had tried that as well. And so did the Sudanese man and all the others that invite themselves into such a hopeless situation. That you can secure a country by yourself and that this country has lost citizenship. You are the only citizen. And the loss of constitutionalism, the loss of power, disempowerment. If you want to look at it another way, look at where the guns reside. And I’ll take you through around the country. Does Uganda have guns? Are they ready to use them? Does Basoga have? Does Acholi have? Go around and you will know where the guns are and who is ready to use those guns to defend themselves. Where the generals are and where they are ready to defend their community. So, this is not rocket science, my brother. Everything is written on the wall for all of us to see. 

Moderator: I hear you loud and clear. If you have any questions, please contact my Genera or if General delegated him, her, or something of that sort. I’ll just find out at this point. Honorable Alice Alasso, do you mind unmuting and talking to us? Honorable Alice Alasso, in case you’re speaking, your microphone is muted. Honorable Alice Alasso. Okay, so we’ll get back to that account later, maybe. Yes, Honorable? Yes, please. I see Honorable Alice Alasso is unmuted at some point. Honorable Alice, do you hear? Honorable Alice Alasso, I mean. Okay. So back to Honorable Salam Musumba now. Honorable, you talked of the constitutional safeguards. Term limit, age limit. Both were booted out of the constitution. The first one left in 2005. The most recent one left in 2017. Now the constitution is just there without what one would call a peaceful transfer of power rail guards. Now, fortunately for us as a people, you see God loves us as Ugandans. Honorable Norbert Mao has said it’s a matter of bringing these things back. He has said he’s going to go around the country, look for ways of bringing in provisions into the constitution that will then usher in a peaceful transfer of power. How optimistic or pessimistic are you about his suggestions? 

Hon Salam Musumba: Well, the first thing to interrogate is who is he speaking for? Who does Honorable Mao speak for? Does he speak for NRM? Does he speak for DP? Does he speak for me? The answer is no. Because his mandate is limited to cabinet. Has he introduced these matters to cabinet? Has he sought the approval for collective action? We need also to look back in history. The constituent parts that made up Uganda at independence. Where are they in this equation? They negotiated the independence of this country. And their voices went mute. And they got displaced. Until we retrace who we are and how we came to be, we will never find our way forward. Because I don’t know who Honorable Mao speaks for. I don’t. For sure he doesn’t speak for me. And I don’t think all the other constituencies acknowledge that he speaks for them. Because in doing the 1995 constitution, there was an elaborate process that we all followed, that we all tracked. Today, this is a one-person thing. And it defeats multi-party politics. We are back into individualism, individual merit, individual demerits. And so we as a citizenry are lost. We don’t know where we are at in the constitution. The constitution has been so badly shredded that you can’t even know where it is. Where are we now? And who’s doing what for us? You know, it’s like we are governed by thieves. Thieves who are stalking us. And thieves who are watching out to pounce on us. I mean, a constitution is supposed to help us live in harmony and live well and thrive collectively. But somebody’s playing the game of solitaire and looking at the cards alone and throwing them at us. That cannot be a constitution that governs a country like us. A constitution that has been shredded, that has been manipulated, disabled. I mean, a constitution that actually is worse than the so-called pigeonhole constitution or Lancaster constitution. There is no discussion about our collective future, our collective existence in this geographical space called Uganda. So I’m at pain to discuss an empty space that Honorable Mao now occupies and that he sets his own rules and chooses when and what to tell the people of Uganda. We are not his subjects. We are citizens. We are not his subjects. And so the best that we can do is to call him to order. That, you know, you are breaching our constitutional trust. You are breaching the aspirations of the people of Uganda and imposing your will on us. And that is contrary to Article 1, that all power belongs to the people, us. There’s nothing good to write home. The elephant in the room is transition. And what Mao is looking at is the extension of all these ugly things that we know in our history. He’s actually a weapon now. Look at Honorable Mao as a rifle. In the past you would have called him the king’s royal rifles, something like that. But today he’s just a weapon. You would even consider him as a political terrorist, pouncing on us without a discussion. That’s not what democracy requires us to do. At least not in this millennium. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing to write home about what is being proposed by Honorable Mao and whoever else he works for and speaks for. 

Moderator: Okay, Honorable, now that you have painted this rather gloomy picture with the political side of how these things are playing out, have you seen other sides perhaps try to play a counterbalance? If you talk about the elders, the religious leaders, the traditional leaders, have they been any better in perhaps trying to help this country move towards a peaceful transfer of power for the first time in its history as things stand right now? Well, again, when a system dies, it also falls like a pack of cards. And so the 40 years of one-party rule of President Museveni has impacted adversely onto the entire community and institutions. And I can safely say that the traditional leaders, the custodians of who we were and who we ought to be, have also been co-opted, the religious leaders too. And this wouldn’t be a bad thing in itself, because if they were working in unison, they would be ensuring that we have a better product. Unfortunately, it’s like they’re equally helpless and voiceless. And so we have this cocktail of failure that we have to deal with in different degrees. For instance, we would want to know what the religious leaders say about the situation in which we find ourselves and how do we unravel it. I won’t waste time on the traditional leaders, because they have been relegated to observer status on matters of state, and they have happily consented. And yet, if I was to use my own home experience, Sir William Wilberforce Nadiope, the first vice president of this country, was at the table in Lancaster and all the things, the union that led us into independence, and so were others. But you do not find on the table of Uganda’s politics today a space for him or his successors. The collective voice of we, the territory of Busoga , and it’s the same for all the other places, Uganda, Bonyoro, Ankore , Kigezi, and all that. So this disorientation since independence has led us to this situation we find ourselves in. But we can no longer keep bleeding histories, slave trade and all that. We have the knowledge, we have the muscle, the political capability and capacity to reverse all these unconstitutional things and work in unison to give ourselves a better country that we hope. So no, the other actors, professional bodies, traditional cultural leaders and religious leaders have all conspired to betray ourselves, knowingly, unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously. That’s the sum total of what their omission and commission have led us to. 

Moderator: Okay, for those who have just joined us along the way, today we are talking about the same thing we talked about the other week, or last week, the question of Uganda’s transition, and we are continuing that discussion. I am joined by Honorable Salam Musumba, a former member of Parliament, and along the way we hope to be joined by General Mugisha Muntu, a former commander of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces, and a mobilizer for the Alliance for National Transformation. So that’s the discussion we are having right now. So far, the Honorable with us has told us that there is not much hope for this country. Power has been usurped and taken into the hands of one person. She’s saying that unless something magical or miraculous happens, we are likely to have a chaotic transition. So that is the point we are at right now. So Honorable, I’ll come back to you. With all that is going on in Uganda, there seems a lot of hopelessness. The politicians seem to be as corrupt. I mean, I think corruption has actually hit a new high. Many of the lawyers say that the courts are corrupt to a level they have never been in the past. Everything seems withdrawn. And the president or the presidency, the executive seems to be having a free pass. Yet at the same time, the roads are now worse than they’ve ever been. Education is barely funded and going to rot. Teachers, health workers, so many government staff every now and then announce that they are striking. And the young Ugandans, hundreds of thousands of them, if recent surveys are anything to go by, have chosen to vote with their feet and they’d rather go and be housemaids, gardeners and every other thing in a desert called Saudi Arabia than be in Uganda. So from your own assessment, if we continue along this trajectory for five or 10 years, how does that play out for Uganda in the long run, in say like 20 years from now? 

Hon Salamu Musumba: How much damage can this do to our country? We are already damaged goods. We are already not viable, not competitive. And the sorry thing is that we have lived, I think, a quarter life and the majority of us with the potential that we collectively share, we could have been the best nation on the planet. The only missing thing is governance. And, you know, we thought we had fixed it in 1995. And we actually believed that President Museveni would be that one freedom fighter that would give us that which we haven’t tasted and which we desire so badly. He has made a choice, not true, to follow all the past leaders that he demonized. And he will be part of that heap of past leaders that he demonized for so long and failed to turn the page. We, the next generation, you see, this cannot be a permanent situation. We are going to have a rough transition. Rough like all the others have been. And I sense and I feel the restlessness of everybody in Uganda. The restlessness that they cannot have more of the same. And I also see that ready to die if that is what it will take to rein in the situation that doesn’t seem to be giving way. If it’s anything to go by, one of the indicators is what happened over the weekend with the professionals. And that is the palpable feeling in every space in this country, professional, political, religious. You will soon see young priests revolt against their leaders. You will soon see it. If you do, remember that there was a time that the lay people revolted against bishops. Bishops appointed in Kampala, bishops appointed in Rome, they said we will not have this. We are getting to that very soon. Very soon meaning in 2025. Because when a community loses hope with the apathy that is readable even in your voice as a moderator, what else is there to lose? What else is there to lose? Because if you have something to save, then you work for it. But if there is everything to lose and you have nothing left to lose, that desperate situation, that desperate society is very difficult to reign in and to control. So that is the trajectory of the country. I don’t know whether you see what I see, but that’s the trajectory I see. And I have been here long enough to tell what is about to happen. 

Moderator: I see exactly that, but the advantage with you is that you’ve lived through much longer time and you know more. So when we have you in these places, that is the whole point. You give us a perspective from the angle of experienced eyes and person who has lived through it all. So the other thing now is when you look at the opposition, we have 2021, we in a way probably move forward. Yes, 2021 that people voted and this time became the leading party in parliament with about 57, 56 MPs. I don’t know which, if my math gets me wrong, if the math is not correct. The FDC is still a big force in the parliament, but not really anymore. Same with DP. DP went ahead to make an alliance with NRM. Before that, there was UPC that did the same. Looking at those opposition parties, and who yourself are in one of those opposition parties, I don’t know which one particularly right now, or which particular faction. Do you think the opposition is up to the task of such a magnanimous thing as the transition that is playing out before us at this particular point in time? 

Hon Salam Musumba: You see, you deal with what you have. If those are the eggs you have for the omelette, that’s what you have. But I know that collectively, in those parties, there is the goodwill and there are also experts, knowledgeable, capable leaders that can work towards getting us back on track to where we were going. I know that. And that it is inevitable that we will have to do that sooner than later. And let me also inform all the people on the platform that discussions are going on about that possibility. And so, you cannot judge an opposition that has been targeted, deliberately weakened and attacked, as a strategy of retaining power for the sake of power. In fighting an entrenched dictatorship, it takes more than has been on the table to push back. But that said, I must tell you that the lost political class must work in its self-interest to preserve what they have built. Thank you. This is the first point. To preserve what they have built. If they do not preserve it, it will also go out in smoke, and we will start all over again. Even at our worst, I wouldn’t like to see that happen. I would want every effort to be made to build on the 40 years, the 62 years that we have been independent as a country. Let us use our history as the lesson for the next generation of leaders. I remember we said that about Museven and his group when they arrived. We said, never again. And here we are, still at it. So, as one Mugisha Muntu says to me, maybe it’s the color of our skin that we never seem to get nothing right. But I do believe that we can gather ourselves once again and start afresh. So, to answer you, we will do with what we have. Because we cannot become Kenyans, we cannot become Somalis or Sudanese. We are Ugandans. We need to find ourselves and fix ourselves. And I’m sure that these voices are all over us. You on this platform, Mwenda with his group, that have tried everything and find themselves on a journey to nowhere. And they’ve tried crookery, they’ve tried all sorts of things. It hasn’t worked. And so they’ve got to look at the political mirror and see who is coming after them and what they must do to salvage us all. 

Moderator: Okay. Sticking with that particular group, I don’t know how you brought it in yet, I was going to ask you just about it. The Muhoozi group. You said the Mwenda group, yeah, but it’s one and the same. So, right from 2022, I think, just after the election, they started this big mobilization, moving across the country, doing all these sorts of things. They began the wild gamble. The wild goose gamble. That’s back then. But in the grand scheme of things, you had hinted earlier that transition can even be within the ruling party. So when you look at that group and the things it does, Mwenda said when he was here last week, sorry I keep going back to him. But yeah, because he said things that I think relate to what you’re speaking. He said it is good that the Muhoozi group came out because he believes that Museveni can only hand over power to someone like Muhoozi who is his son, so that we Ugandans should be grateful that Muhoozi has come up. Finally, Museveni is going to hand over power peacefully to someone probably we don’t like, but at least he will have handed over power to his son. And then we can pick it up from there and fight with the army we have at that point in time going forward, the opposition that we have and all that. Is that how you also see it, that it is actually after all a good thing that finally Museveni has someone he can give power to, and then we don’t wake up to bullets flying all over the place? 

Hon Salam Musumba: This is the first point. To preserve what they have built. If they do not preserve it, it will also go out in smoke, and we will start all over again. Even at our worst, I wouldn’t like to see that happen. I would want every effort to be made to build on the 40 years, the 62 years that we have been independent as a country. Let us use our history as the lesson for the next generation of leaders. I remember we said that about Museveni and his group when they arrived. We said, never again. And here we are, still at it. So, as one Obama says to me, maybe it’s the color of our skin that we never seem to get nothing right. But I do believe that we can gather ourselves once again and start afresh. So, to answer you, we will do with what we have. Because we cannot become Kenyans, we cannot become Somalis or Sudanese. We are Ugandans. We need to find ourselves and fix ourselves. And I’m sure that these voices are all over us. You on this platform, Mwenda with his group, that have tried everything and find themselves on a journey to nowhere. And they’ve tried crookery, they’ve tried all sorts of things. It hasn’t worked. And so they’ve got to look at the political mirror and see who is coming after them and what they must do to salvage us all. Okay. Sticking with that particular group, I don’t know how you brought it in yet, I was going to ask you just about it. The Muhoozi group. You said the Mwenda group, yeah, but it’s one and the same. So, right from 2022, I think, just after the election, they started this big mobilization, moving across the country, doing all these sorts of things. They began the wild gamble. The wild goose gamble. That’s back then. But in the grand scheme of things, you had hinted earlier that transition can even be within the ruling party. So when you look at that group and the things it does, Mwenda said when he was here last week, sorry I keep going back to him. But yeah, because he said things that I think relate to what you’re speaking. He said it is good that the Muhoozi group came out because he believes that Museveni can only hand over power to someone like Muhoozi who is his son, so that we Ugandans should be grateful that Muhoozi has come up. Finally, Museveni is going to hand over power peacefully to someone probably we don’t like, but at least he will have handed over power to his son. And then we can pick it up from there and fight with the army we have at that point in time going forward, the opposition that we have and all that. Is that how you also see it, that it is actually after all a good thing that finally Museveni has someone he can give power to, and then we don’t wake up to bullets flying all over the place? You see, Mwenda is on duty to promote that narrative and make it acceptable to the population. And I want to say to him, no sir, that that is not what Ugandans want, because they had their kingdoms, they had their rulers, and they were successfully doing so before this political fraud setting, the one for which is growing a successor to inherit the great republic. That narrative is still dead on arrival, and they’ve invested so much in it to force it down the throats of every Ugandan, and it has failed to work. And it will not work. And please, stop it at that. Let’s go back to the constitutional order, because it’s not just his son and his family that are in governance. There’s your family, there’s also my family and other people’s families that make up this country, that would love to see us transit peacefully. And I’m sure that a freedom fighter like President Museveni needs no lectures on this. And I don’t believe he’s lost and not found. I believe that he can muster the courage to face Ugandans and face himself and say, listen, this country that I’ve built for 40 years, that I have contributed to for 40 years, can move. Initially, they said that a leader would emerge. The leader has failed to emerge from where they wanted him to emerge. That’s why Pilao now is on just a plate for eating. It’s not anywhere in the political discourse. You know, you can’t do this trickery forever. This trickery leads to death. And please, stop this. 

Moderator: Honourable, you called it pilau. Yeah, this clever cut thing that they are doing. 

Hon Salam Musumba: There is no clever cut in all this. There are so many families on the brink of becoming refugees, of losing lives if we don’t get sorted this way. Please, and let us not advance Mwenda’s warped thinking to impose it on all of us. We refuse. I refuse. I refuse to be co-opted into this. This is wrong abomination and it remains so. And Mwenda knows better. So, if I was in leadership today, I would arrest Mwenda for treason, for even contemplating this and running with it. Because what he is committing is treason. That narrative is treason. Because we have a constitutional order. Please don’t take us that way. And you too don’t. Don’t repeat the falsehoods. I think they should try a lecture by the so-called political scientists in Makerere University, if they still exist. The so-called lawyers all over the place. Straighten this out for the ordinary people. Because they are relying on you and your intellect and your knowledge, or if you have it, to straighten out these things. Because it’s us, the political class that took the population into a constitutional making process. You are the ones taking us into anarchy. So please bang the tables more and more in every space you occupy. Get back on track. 

Moderator: Okay, thank you Honorable again. Now, the reality we have as Ugandans right now, I know there are a couple of young people on this space who are listening to all you’re saying, and I’ll just put it to you now at this point that, if you were to speak to those young people on this space, let’s say people who are like 25, 26, or even 35, how best, now that you’ve showed us how much you should be concerned with these things, with this thing called transition, because while we haven’t seen a peaceful transition as a country, at least we have seen very many, 1966, 1971, 1979, 1980, 1982, I can name them all for you. So now that we have seen those unpeaceful transfers of power, and the human carnage that came with it, the cost on the economy, on human livelihoods, on disruption, on stagnation, and all that came with it, and we must avoid it at all costs. So how best can someone who is on this space, they are not a politician, they are just a powerless doctor, a powerless lawyer, I’m using powerless loosely in this case. No, that one would be a useless person to talk to. Powerless lawyer, powerless doctor. I don’t have the time for those. Just citizens of Uganda, so what would you talk to them at this point? How best can they organize? What can be their role and how should they participate in ensuring that very peaceful transfer of power? Salam Musumba: The first thing is for them to be conscious and recognize that they are powerless for now. We are back into gun rule. And this gun rule is different in that one part of the region is stalking the whole country. Stalking us and disempowering us economically is changing citizenship, actually turning the constitution into a weapon against the rest of us. And therefore, their political consciousness must be raised into action is required urgently. You don’t have to wait for 2026 because the layout of the game now for 2026 is just worse than the one but the same template is on the table and so don’t wait don’t even accept don’t even don’t even be polite about these things let us use 2026 as the trigger let’s use 2026 as the game changer let us use it with everything that we have to get us to a position where we are able to get power to back to ourselves by not falling prey to fear falling prey to money and falling prey to manipulation I have already had that office of the national chairman of the national resistance movement is already preparing vote protection against who protecting votes against who because you are the thief, you are the manipulator, you are the torturer and now a smokescreen is being created that vote protection all we want is a free and fair election as provided for in the Constitution and the laws but what we have right now is already a political environment we already have an electoral commission which is just a paper tiger it is the military that are managing the elections and so this foolery must be put to an end we must because this will damage an entire country if you want examples look at Sudan Sudan and Bashir look like a stable democracy a military democracy and so Bashir used to win elections by 99% look at where Sudan is today I mean that is where we are going because you have the new generals versus the old generals you have the freedom fighters versus the junta lately it’s new money working against old money and all these distortions equal one thing called trouble for all of us whether you want to agree or not agree that is where we are faced and so you young people the first thing I would advise you to do is that this you can’t you can’t manage this on your own you must work transgenerational pick up all this knowledge all this capacity and form a winning group and support a winning group so that in your time you have a country you can call home you don’t have to die as slaves on the plains in warehouses in Dubai in warehouses in Saudi Arabia are raped maimed and and actually it’s boys that are getting more raped and you know how that gets into mental health problems so young men we were young too and so was Museveni’s group actually I would have loved to hear from my colleague Hon Muntu at 26 as a CDF working tirelessly to stabilize this country and being thrown out as a group that had to give way to the new team the new team that they are preparing to hand over to not through a transition but through a succession. Number two, not through a transition, but through a succession. So, don’t look like the Arab Spring that never saw the fruits of what it had worked for. If you also turn your eye to the Gen Z in Kenya and what’s happening now, you would see that we cannot achieve the transition and the transformation out of just one generation. It has to be intergenerational. And this is what I would plead to you and pray that you do understand that you should not rush to crush. Because that happened to us in 1986. What we are suffering is because we believe that the freedom they were fighting for was collective freedom. Actually, with hindsight now, you can see what they were fighting for and what they tell you in broad daylight, that I didn’t fight for you, I fought for myself and my family. And that is true. That is the hard truth. So, can we make it possible for all families of this republic to be part of this country and part of the collective success that we all seek to achieve? Gen Z and Generation What? It is our time. It will not work. Because you will not even hold that power. You don’t know what the animal called power is. First study the thing they call power. Once you understand power and what power does to people, and what power does to destroy so many things, then you will be better prepared to handle this power. And you need mentorship. And you need also to learn from the best. Unfortunately, there are very few that you can learn from. I would have recommended Mwenda, but the Mwenda I knew then and the Mwenda who is here is a shadow. It is a sad reality. And so, young people, we need to re-engineer this country so that it works for us all intergenerationally. 

Moderator: Okay. From your own experience and assessment of these scenarios, what makes 2026 that moment, the eureka moment for Uganda’s politics? And what are those things that the youth whom you’ve spoken to should capitalize to make it even more impactful as far as drawing closer to the transition is concerned? What should be those things? 

Hon Salam Musumba: Well, you see, Kyagulanyi has fallen for the trap laid for him as a person. And he has left behind the organization he needs. Because I don’t think that is how you ascend into being a flag bearer of a party, that you announce yourself. That in itself is a failure. Because what we accuse President Museveni of, we should not imitate. We should work very, very calculatedly to avoid those pitfalls. Because they’re easy, they’re snares. This idea of me, myself, and I as a leader is the biggest disaster that has hit us. And so the patience we require to build back public confidence and to build back institutions that lead us to the leadership we want must be maintained. I think Ugandans should ignore all that and focus more on how to liberate themselves. And liberation, unfortunately, will not come through the ballot prepared by Byabakama. Forget that. We will have other… and those options must be evaluated and activated. And I believe that the owner Kyagulanyi can retrace his path if he still wants to be a leader of his generation. He’s going to do more than he did in the… He needs to re-engineer himself too. He needs to reach out because majorities quickly become minorities and you may not recover from there. So, what I would advise, one, is that we get back on the tables we’ve been at for the last year. And continue to prepare for that situation which is inevitable. And it is in our self-interest, self-preservation to have that discussion and also be able to invite all of you because we don’t live in this country alone. When you go back home, I don’t, I’m sure you don’t realize that you’ve created like a small prison for yourself. Bugler-proofing,Askari, razor wire and cameras and yet you don’t sleep. Even a rat is enough to disrupt you the whole night when it crosses the floor. So, we are all not secure, we are all not safe. And as a country too, we are not safe, we are not secure, we are not, we risk being a failed country yet again. So, what it will take is political consciousness as I am laboring too and all of us have labored too for 20 years to inform the country. But what it will also take is organization. But we will also have a leaderless transition or a leaderless change of power or we will also have a disorganized transition. So, we have to make a choice which transition would we rather have and which opposition would we rather work with. A formal opposition or an informal opposition. Because a formal opposition, you can reach out across the table and invite others. But if we go back to guerrilla stuff, it is not in our interest to do so. But if it becomes inevitable, that is the change that will happen. A low amount of intimidation, low amount of threats will happen, will stop it. Because at 80, which should be 85, at 80, you are on your way out, what next? At 50, you’re not a youth. You’re a man. And so stop doing childish things. Unless you’re talking about a bazukulu at 20. But that too will not happen. You cannot, the river won’t flow upstream. It will go downstream. And so we must respect nature and respect ourselves. I don’t know why we are so involved in rat races and in conjuring up situations. When it is in our power to resolve many of these things that we are talking about. The final responsibility is how does President Museveni intend to get out? Because when you’re in politics, you must manage your entry, manage your existence, and manage your exit. How has he plotted to manage his exit? It surely can’t be family rule. It will not happen.

 Moderator: Okay. Honorable, we have never as a country been in this scenario where you have a president who is 80 years, has been in power for 40 years, and then the question becomes transition. In fact, in the past, we have had presidents who served as short as 64 days. Amin, who was the longest serving uninterrupted, just did about nine years. So for the first time we have a president who has served for this long, and now it’s probably the evening of his rule. 

Hon Salam Musumba: He is in the evening. 

Moderator: So he probably looks very unconcerned, unbothered. And we’ve seen other examples of people who have been in this scenario. If you talk about Gaddafi, who was preparing his son Saif Gaddafi, you know how that ended. I think Saif Gaddafi announced he would contest in the presidential election recently, and then the election was botched and they missed out. You had Hosini Mubarak who was preparing his son, Gamal Mubarak, and it ended up in turmoil. You had Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe who was preparing his wife, Grace Mugabe. Everything blew up in flames and there was no transition as they had planned. So with so many examples, a gamble like this can pay off so badly. In fact, the last time I read about Grace Mugabe and the Mugabe family is that they had these big farms, some of the farms that they took from the white settlers, and one of those farms was a big enterprise for the family. And the last thing I read about them was that some of the farm implements were being put up for auctioning because the family couldn’t meet the costs right now that they were out of power. It got to a point as far as that Mugabe’s son-in-law was divorcing his daughter, and then for the first time that also exposed how much the family had looted in terms of how much the daughter had in her own name. Now, with all these ugly scenarios on the one hand, and yet you had other examples. If you could look at Jonathan Good Luck in Nigeria, for instance. 

Hon Salam Musumba: Even look at Meles Zenawi, where the wife used to be in Parliament and intimidated everybody. Where is that family? 

Moderator: Yeah, but now on the other side, the good side of it is that people sometimes negotiate their way out of power. So you have good luck Jonathan in Nigeria, you have Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya, December 2002. He negotiated his way, he has kept much of his wealth. Of course now the family is in court, losing some of that property, but at least through a more credible process of court. You have Obasanjo in Nigeria, who was in Uganda I think only last week, moving freely across the continent, doing all these things. You had Jerry Rawlings in Nigeria. So there’s also that other side that if you do it well… 

Hon Salam Musumba: In Ghana. 

Moderator: Yeah, Ghana. If you do it well, there are these dividends. But if you do it bad, you could lose even the little you’re trying to keep. How do we get someone like President Museveni to appreciate that reality and act on it before probably things run out and in the worst case scenario end up badlyand everyone loses out? 

Hon Salam Musumba: Well, the choice is his. Really, the choice is his. And he’s the best historian, if you know him. He’s a man of great wisdom, of great knowledge, which he could apply to himself of the endgame. As for securing himself, what I know about Ugandans is that they are very, very forgiving people. They are very accommodative. And that we can put all these things of years in our past and move past the 40 years and move on. Because I can’t recover my 40 years, however angry I am. I can’t. I can’t recover the time. And so I can only bequeath it to the next generation. And the 1995 constitution that he himself procured was meant to sort out all these things. And there was an effort to do so. I mean, I look at old people, very, very articulate legislators in the past. But we will die disrespected. We will die unannounced. We will die. And nobody wants to know anything about us. And so why did you acquire all this wealth for? Why did you steal all this Ugandan wealth for? What for? At the end of the day, it is the vanity that has engulfed ourselves and needs to be fixed. And there’s good time. There’s good time. There’s still time for it. Without us having to tinker around with the constitution and elongate it and do what. It is a vain thing that we are all caught up in. And I don’t want to advise anybody to do it. Just do your part and get moving and go on. Let the country move on. Let us all live well. And we can. So, what worries President Museveni is only known to him. But I would want to assure him that Ugandans loved him so much. And Ugandans believed him. Ugandans trusted him. Our brothers and sisters died on that battlefield for a better Uganda. And that hasn’t come to pass. Very, very pathetic. Very pathetic. I don’t even know whether anybody remembers what the Luweero War was about. I wish you would find the Honorable Muntu to give us this perspective. Because as young men with other alternatives, they chose to go to the bush. What did they want to bring? And what did they bring? And what has it morphed into? And how do we then recover from this? I think this debate is good. But there are people who are missing on the table. And among those are the historicals, the people, if there are any remaining of independence, to tell us the story. At midnight on the 8th, what Ugandans’ aspirations were. And what is left of that. We have talked enough on this horror story. And I think we need now to shape the future. 

Moderator: Yes, Honorable, and I just want to say that we are having these persons on this particular topic as a series. So that’s why I said that last week we had someone else, we are having you today. The fact that Honorable Mugisha Muntu is not with us, a bit complicated things, but now we think we will have him probably next week to talk from a purely historical and military angle into this topic. So we are going to be having these topics, this is not the end of them, and it’s interesting that they will coincide with independence and even overtake it. So that we can just have this reflection as a people, as a country, and see what the future holds for us during lessons from our current and our past. So at this point in time, I’m going to bring in people from the audience to ask questions. So if you’re there with a question for Honorable Salam Musumba, you think you have a comment to make in relation to this topic, or you have…

This is an X space from Agora Discourse with me Agather Atuhaire: Transition Question: A conversation with Hon Salam Musumba and transcribed by Henry Otafiire. This material may be protected by copyright